ThumbNet volunteer Danny Hovanec is featured in his local Pennsylvania hometown magazine, and is proud to be an active part of ThumbNet!! Danny also received a STEM scholarship, which you can read about on p29 of the same magazine. ThumbSat would like to congratulate Danny on his success and thank him for his support of ThumbNet.

A fantastic 30 minute PodCast interview between the brilliant Lab Out Loud team, Dale Basler and Brian Bartel and our own Shaun Whitehead. Ranging from Space Engineering to ThumbSat to ThumbNet to how your school can get its own payload or experiment into space for free, it's the best 30 minutes you can spend this week!

When we say “launch” we really mean it – as in launch it with a rocket into near-Earth orbit. Yes, personal Earth-orbiting satellites are now much more achievable and economical with DIY space systems like ThumbSat. Using their standardized femto-satellite platform, Makers ranging from scientists and educators to engineers and hobbyists can design and arrange a satellite for launch in the next 2 years, at much lower cost and effort than ever before.... Read the rest of the article here.

In the past decade, we’ve seen that mini-satellites can provide quite a bit of science. CubeSats are being used for applications ranging from Earth imaging, to simple communications, to science experiments. And in the coming years these small satellites (only a few inches across) are expected to fly to further-flung destinations such as Mars and one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa.

While CubeSats are inexpensive enough for universities and small companies to access, a company called ThumbSat Inc. has a vision of even cheaper space exploration. As the name of the firm implies, a “ThumbSat” is controlled by a tiny circuit board and carries an experiment that is just 48 mm x 48 mm x 32 mm across at most and weighing around 25 grams (0.055lb). What’s more, ThumbSat is willing to do more of the mission planning for you than a typical CubeSat... Read the rest of the article here.